A car drove towards a mansion, the impressive building with a black roof was three stories high and the bricks that had been used to built it were painted in a pastel-yellow. Every door and window posts had concrete ornaments.
By the looks of it the building was based on a Victorian style, but it wasn't that old, for a building. A century at most.
That is at least what John said, Mai had no idea how he could tell. Mai Taniyama, a high-school student, had worked as an assistant for Shibuya Psychic Research, where she had met the others in this car. She glanced at them, the blond Catholic priest John Brown and the Shinto priestess Ayako Matsuzaki. Both exorcists, who had assisted in cases of the SPR. She hadn't seen them ever since the owner of SPR, a young man they all called Naru, had left Japan after he had finished his business here, and with that disbanded the company. She sighed as she looked out of the window again, she missed him. She never thought she'd admit it, but she really missed the narcissistic Naru.
When the cab pulled over in front of the building, Mai, John and Ayako exited the car and after Ayako paid the driver, they all turned to the building.
"So, this is where Takigawa-san is?" John asked.
Mai nodded, Houshou Takigawa, the Buddhist monk and exorcist who had also aided SPR with various cases, had called her that morning, although she had been asleep when the call came. "He asked us to come as soon as we could," she said, putting a hand on her chest, "even without the tone of his voice on my voicemail, I knew it was urgent. I felt it. Let's hurry." The call had come at six a.m., but it was around noon now. It had taken that long to hear the message, contact everyone and come here. She ran up the steps and tried the door, but it was locked. So, she rang the doorbell instead. John and Ayako joined her, and they waited for the door to be opened.
When it did, a woman none of them knew stood in the doorway. The woman wore a yellow blouse with a brown skirt reaching just over her knees. Her curled, chestnut-coloured hair was tied in a loose ponytail.
"You must be the back-up," she said with a sigh of relief. "Come quickly, he's at the backdoor."
They followed her through the mansion, as they walked the woman introduced herself as Catherine and in a few words she explained that after a tragedy the place was now haunted and that some of the orphans had gotten possessed. It was obvious there was more to the story, but they reached the kitchen which was where the backdoor was.
A group of children huddled in a corner and Catharine hurried to them.
In the doorway leading into the backyard was the monk, dressed in his Buddhist-attire. He held his single-pronged vajra, or tokkosho, a small sceptre with two blades on opposite sides used in Buddhist rituals. They heard him recite the mantra to Acalantatha Vidya-raja, the Immovable, which was used to exorcise sworn enemies.
"He looks tired," Mai whispered to the others.
"Naumaku sanmanda bazaradan senda makaroshada sowataya un tarata kan man."
They walked closer to see what he was battling and they all gasped when the saw the black and tentacled entity in the backyard, it had the vague resemblance of a human. It floated above the grass and Mai saw several red lights swirling around it. One look at John and Ayako made it clear they saw it too.
"Naumaku sanmanda bodanan on boron."
"What's that?" Mai whispered. "That thing… is evil." She heard the children in the corner cry and hurried to them
"On sunba nisunba unbuzara un hatta. Naumaku sanmanda bazaradan senda makaroshada sowataya un tarata kan man."
Mai looked at Catherine, who tried to comfort the children as well as she could. Mai counted twelve of them, at least. "What's going on?" she asked.
"It wants the children. Houshou has been keeping him at bay whenever he appears, but he can't do it alone.
Suddenly Houshou let out a sigh and lowered the tokkosho. He glanced over his shoulder, raising his hand and showing a tired smile. "Hey guys, how nice of you to drop by." The smile quickly faded. "We need to talk. But first things first. Ayako, I need protective charms for all the children. John, we have several possessed children, can you exorcise them?"
Normally Ayako would have a thing or two to say about being commanded like that, but one look at his serious face made her nod. "Of course," she said. "I will begin right away."
"Me too," John said. "Where are the kids?"
"Yeah, I'll show you," Houshou said, but Catherine held up her hand.
"No, you need to rest," Catherine interjected. "I will show him."
Houshou nodded to that. "Mai, could you look after the children for a moment and maybe make some coffee." He gestured to the cabinets. "Everything should be here somewhere."
"Will it be safe?" Mai asked.
"For now, he appears every three hours and stays for one, so we have two hours in which nothing happens. I'm going to take a quick nap, wake me up in an hour and I'll tell you all what I know and why I called."
Mai nodded and promised to do so. She watched the monk walk away, before she turned to the children.
One hour later everyone sat in the meeting room with coffee and tea. The charms Ayako had made were already handed out and the children were playing in their rooms.
It was Catharine who began the explanation. "The former director, Mr. Johnson," she said with a tired voice, "he was loved by the children. He was very kind and gentle, and he played with them, they all called him father, even though he wasn't the biological father of any of them. I worked here as one of the caretakers and I always loved to see him interact like that." Catherine fiddled with her clothes as she talked. "But there was a dark side to him," she said softly. "He conducted illegal experimentations on the children, so he could live forever. Sometimes a child disappeared, but he always said it had been adopted and then he apologized for not letting me know." She looked at the table with tears in her eyes. "The fool I was, I believed him."
Mai, sitting next to her, put a hand on her arm. "You couldn't have known," she whispered.
Catherine nodded and showed a weak smile to Mai, which quickly faded again. "One day," she continued, "he thought he had found the key to the elixir of life and during the night he injected some kind of potion into the children. He was busy injecting them all, but our janitor walked in on him after he had injected the fourteenth child. All fourteen children died in their sleep and we called the police, but before they even got here, he escaped the room we had him locked into and he committed suicide. He shot himself as he stood at the edge pond at the back. His body fell into the water, that's where we found him." She looked at the people the monk had called, they all listened intently. "That happened two nights ago. The janitor and the cook left, they wanted nothing to do with this. We're in the process of finding a new place for the children, but for the time being they can't go anywhere." She sighed, raking her fingers through her hair. "Last night, at sunset that's when we started hearing things in the house, doors opened and closed, running footsteps, giggling." Catharine looked towards the monk. "I called Houshou immediately, I knew he was in the neighbourhood."
"How did you two meet?" Ayako asked.
"We met a few years ago, at a festival," Houshou explained. "We kept in touch ever since."
"So, there's nothing going on between you?"
He chuckled. "Nah, we're just friends. Anyway, when she called me, I came over immediately. It was very much like a poltergeist, not surprising after what had happened. I though it were the children who had died, but didn't see an immediate thread. Until midnight. That's when it showed up. And when we noticed three children behaved strangely we gathered all sixteen children in a room and I put up a kekkai there."
Mai recalled how effective that barrier was, he had done that twice during their missions with SPR. Spirits couldn't cross it, so everyone was safe from them on the other side.
"After an hour it was gone and I went to investigate the area. Then after two hours it appeared again. I kept it at a distance, but I couldn't exorcise it. Two more children got possessed. We withdrew into the room again and I put up another barrier. When it was gone I took a nap, I really needed to sleep at that point. We kept the children together." He scratched the back of his head. "I thought that when the day would come, the appearance would stop, but at six in the morning, it appeared again. We stayed in the room, behind the barrier, but one of the possessed children stabbed me."
Mai and Ayako gasped at that revelation.
"Show me," Ayako demanded.
"Catherine took care of it," he said, but he did lift his clothes to reveal blood-stained bandage on his side. "We stitched it. I managed to keep the barrier up, but…" he rubbed his face, "it's getting too hard for me to do that. Anyway. That's when I called you, Mai. When it left we locked the possessed children up, for their and our safety. And at nine it appeared again, I warded off the spirits and kept it at a distance, but one spirit did get through and possessed another child. And then at noon it came again, but I put a barrier up and kept its attention on me by trying to exorcise it. No-one got possessed that time." He sighed. "I'm really glad you're here. I can't do this alone. It's too strong for me."
"It's good you called," Ayako said. "We'll help you."
"Of course," John added. "What is the plan?"
Houshou looked at John. "The children."
"Ah, yes, they're all exorcised," John said. "Ayako gave them the charms. They won't get possessed again."
The monk nodded to that.
"Those spirits," Mai began.
"Those are likely the spirits of the dead children."
"Why are they with that monster?"
Houshou looked at Mai. "Because I think that is the director and the children loved him, he was a father figure to them. They probably don't know he killed them, so they stay with him. Even now." He turned his attention to Ayako. "There is a shrine at the back of the garden. I don't know if the trees are alive here, but if they are…"
"Then I will cleanse the children," Ayako finished the sentence. "I will check out the shrine."
"Do you think the trees will give you enough power to deal with the director as well?"
"That depends on how far gone he is. Spirits normally come to me because they want to be cleansed. But if he is consumed by the evil inside him, I don't think I can."
Houshou turned to John. "If we work together, do you think we can destroy it?"
"I think so. Are you able to exorcise?"
"Do you think you can do it alone?"
John was taken back by the question. "I…can try."
"Okay. We need a safe place for the children, Catherine will stay with them." He looked at the clock. "We need to prepare a safe room that doesn't require my barrier to keep the children safe. John, if we put charms on the doors and windows, can you bless the room to ward all evil from it?"
John nodded to that.
"Good. Ayako, please put charms on the entrances of one of the bedrooms, we'll let the children hide in there and we'll sit this one out. We'll go to the shrine when he leaves again."
Everyone agreed to it and they prepared the room in the last half hour they had. Ayako changed into her priestess outfit and put up the charms in the two windows and the door. John had also changed into his priest-attire and sanctified the room with holy water and prayer.
They all sat together and when the clock struck three, the sound of footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. There were pounding noises. Giggles. The walls of the mansion shook.
A tentacle beat the window and Houshou grabbed his tokkosho, but the charm did its job and the window remained intact. John looked outside, the evil spirit hovered above the grass and looked straight at the room they were hiding in.
The children were scared, they cried and huddled around the grown-ups. The pounding and banging and shaking continued until four, then everything died out again. One glance outside learned them the evil spirit had left again, as it always did after an hour.
Ayako, John, Houshou and Mai went to the back of the garden. Near the pond Mai stopped and put a hand on her chest as she looked at the grass.
"What is it, young lady?" Houshou asked.
"There are children playing here," she said. "They seem… happy." There were more than fourteen spirits here, but Mai soon remembered Catharine had said other children had disappeared too, before the fourteen had been murdered.
"They have to move on," Houshou said with a gentle voice. "That's what we're going to do." He glanced towards Ayako. "If you can."
Ayako looked around, her lips curling into a serene smile. "Yes, the trees here are alive. I can cleanse them."
She put a branch with a few leaves on them near the trees, a small bell was tied to it with a red ribbon. She put her hands together and closed her eyes. "I humbly ask your aid. Descend upon this unholy place and make it pure. Exorcise this demon as you have so many before. Listen both peacefully and calmly, and speak the Kannon's chant onto our wished place. Our plane is a vast, violent tundra. Gods from all places, gather here." She changed the position of her hands. "Rin! Pyou! Tou! Shah! Kai! Chin! Retsu! Zai! Zen!"
When she finished her chant, the spirits came from the trees and merged with the branch. Ayako picked it up and waited. All the nearby spirits came to the area, the children all walked towards her and some other spirits who had lingered there showed themselves as well. Ayako waved the stick around, with every sound of the bell, spirits disappeared.
Just like the first time it was amazing to watch. Houshou smiled a bit, he had often teased Ayako with her inability to perform any exorcisms, but she had surprised him when she did this the first time. And now it seemed equally efficient.
As the last of the children disappeared, the water behind them started to move violently.
"Crap," Houshou cursed as he turned around. "That's too early!"
"He probably noticed the children are leaving," John said.
The evil spirit rose from the surface, there was no doubt this was Mr. Johnson, the director who had killed himself. He had died in the pond after all, that's what Catherine had told them.
Ayako moved her branch from left to right, but the sound of the bell didn't make it disappear. She shook her head. "Spirits come to me when I do this," she said. "They want to be cleansed. He didn't come, he only came when he noticed the children were disappearing. He is not a human soul anymore."
John nodded and stepped forward. He made the sign of a cross and began reciting the Bible. "In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The entity seemed to quiver. "He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made."
The evil spirit rose a tentacle and brought it down to strike John, but Houshou jumped in front of him and blocked it used his tokkosho. "Kyata hanjyasa hadaya sowaka!" he chanted, and the dark entity shuddered.
"And the light shineth in the darkness," John continued, "and the darkness comprehended it not."
As Houshou began his mantra to Acalantatha Vidya-raja to keep the spirit at a distance, John prayed as he walked closer. Mai watched it, holding a small bottle in her hands.
"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread." The entity seemed to shrink and grow, but in the end it seemed smaller than it was before. "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." As he continued his prayer, he held out his hand to Mai, who uncapped the bottle with Holy Water and gave it to him. "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen." At the edge of the pond he made a cross with the bottle, water flew through the air and landed in the water. After that he crouched down and touched the water. "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, bless this water. Rid this pond of all evil."
The evil spirit quivered and let out an unearthly shriek. With the water sanctified, it couldn't harbour the evil spirit anymore. When it rose a tentacle again, Houshou did as he did before, he used his tokkosho to keep John safe, so he could continue the exorcism.
"I command thee in the holy name of Jesus Christ," John said as he stood up. "Be gone from this water. Be gone from this realm." He held up his hand. "Be gone, evil spirit. I command thee in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." He thrust his arm down. "In principio."
The spirit shrieked and dissolved.
Houshou sighed in relief and gave the young priest a pat on the back. "Good job, John! And you too, Ayako."
Ayako joined them. "You've done well yourself too."
"I couldn't get rid of it. I couldn't even prevent the children from being possessed."
"You did what you could and from what you told us, what you did was pretty impressive."
Even though the monk didn't reply to that, the grateful smile said enough. Ayako and Houshou smiled at each other until Mai drew the attention towards her.
"Do you think he's really gone?" she asked.
"I think so," Houshou commented. "It looked pretty definitive, but I guess we'll see at six."
They decided to spend the night at the orphanage, but the evil spirit didn't show itself anymore. After that the spend a few more days there, to help Catharine run the orphanage. After the investigation was complete, Catharine was made the new director and positions for a new cook, janitor and care-taker were quickly filled.
When the last of the staff arrived, Houshou, Ayako, John and Mai said their goodbye's and left the place. It was a job well done and they were ready to go back to their regular lives. And they promised each other to join forces when it was needed. Maybe SPR was no more, that didn't mean they couldn't rely on each other when they needed help.